Tomorrow's Oblivion
by Larry Parr
Summary: Adam crosses paths with Michael Pearson. Where Mike goes, the Tall Man follows. A Tomorrow People/Phantasm crossover.
1. Chapter 1

The disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me. The Tomorrow People are a creation by Roger Damon-Price, and Phantasm is a creation by Don Corscarelli. The idea to bring 'em together is mine. I've taken liberties with the character of Dr. Poole, first introduced in the TP episode "The Culex Experiment." Feedback is welcome.

            It was one of those classic nights of the dark-and-stormy variety; the kind that makes creative writers go nuts with possibilities. It was England, so the odds of it being dark and stormy were fairly good. The countryside was soaked and the moon was obscured behind a thick layer of clouds. The only light came from the occasional fork of lightning, strobing the area in painfully bright detail for split seconds of time.

            The lightning flashed with thunder accompaniment being almost simultaneous. The little used but well maintained road was highlighted in that brief pop of illumination. The darkness returned. Lightning struck again, revealing a figure standing by the roadside. A person who was not there a split-second before. A person who could have been deposited there by the lightning itself.

            _You cannot escape me, boy._

            Michael Pearson whirled around, trying to locate the source of the voice. He was alone.

            _The time has come_.

            He turned violently again, pulling himself off balance, and stumbled into the middle of the road.

            _Booooyyyyy…_

            Mike lurched around, facing the other direction. From his vantage point, he completely failed to see the government-issued limousine bearing down on him.

            Adam Newman looked out the window at the storm-washed landscape racing past the limo. He doubted that he would ever understand mankind, their desire for power only exceeded by their desire for money. The young man looked over at his companion in the seat next to him. Bill Damon, the father of Adam's best friend and surrogate guardian of the Tomorrow People, regarded the young man with paternal concern.

            "Why so blue?" the older man asked.

            "I've observed your scientific conference on the potential for telepathy and telekinesis for the past three days," Adam said. "And the consensus seems to be that we'd make great weapons for the military."

            Damon sighed. He had had this discussion with Adam and his own son before, and he had to admit that Adam was right. Most of the practical applications that his science conference had proposed for the next stage of human evolution were militaristic, if not downright violent. There were a few voices out there, proposing diplomacy and research, but they were the minority.

            "It seems like we've been charged with protecting the human race from itself," said Adam, seeming to hear the general's thoughts. "Whether we want to or not."

            General Damon was about to recite the cliché about great power and great responsibility, but was interrupted as Adam suddenly went rigid and closed his eyes. The squeal of tires and smell of burning rubber hit his senses as the forward momentum of the limousine was abruptly and unexpectedly arrested.

            "What the hell?' yelled General Damon, as he pitched forward off his seat. He looked back at his younger companion, restrained in the seat by his seatbelt.

            "I think we almost hit somebody," replied Adam, undoing his restraint. "I'm pretty sure I managed to push him out of the way, but he could still be injured." Adam opened the door and was out in the night before Damon could stop him.

            The driver was still in the driver's seat, his face pale and hands in a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. Adam was in the grass, kneeling beside the prone figure. Damon came up behind him.

            "Is he all right?" Damon asked, giving the injured man a once-over glance. _Who in the world,_ he thought, _would be out here? In this weather? At this time? Doesn't he know walking roads in black clothes at night isn't safe?_

            "I don't know," Adam replied, breaking the general's train of thought. "I haven't had a chance to check on him. I gave him a pretty hard shove, telepathically speaking. We're lucky we didn't plow right over him."

            Adam took control of his breathing and mentally prepared himself to use his TK powers to heal whatever wounds the young man had suffered. He still wasn't entirely sure _how_ he healed people; but the ability was there and usually worked with astounding results. He placed his hands on the prone figure's chest.

            As soon as contact was made, Adam's body went rigid. Images and voices came pouring into his mind at a frightening speed.

            _"First he took mom and dad, and then he took Jody, and now he's after me."_

_            A tall man, dressed in a suit and tie, picking up a casket by himself._

_            "Mike! We're dreaming! Wake up!"_

_            Being chased by something terrifying, fast, and lethal._

_            "He's harvesting the whole town!"_

            Row after row of empty graves.

            _"Booooyyyy…"_

            The images suddenly stopped, and Adam found himself sitting back in the wet grass with General Damon gripping his shoulders. "What happened?" Damon asked.

            "I don't know," Adam said, voice shaking. "I think he's telepathic. There's something wrong here. He's in trouble. We need to take him back with us."

            "Are you sure?"

            "I picked up images and a few memories. Someone is chasing him. Someone…well, I don't know how to put this."

            "Try."

            "The only word I can use here is evil."

            "Isn't that being a touch melodramatic?"

            "I know how it sounds, but he is in danger. Serious danger. We can't just leave him here."

            "Can you teleport him to Dr. Poole's lab?"

            "I feel too shaky to teleport. That telepathic contact was unexpected and amazingly strong. I don't dare touch him again, and there's no telling where we'd end up if I tried to pull him along with me."

            Damon waved the driver out of the car and between them loaded the limp form into the back seat of the limo. Adam sat in the front passenger seat at Damon's request, and drove back to London.

            The clouds were just starting to break, allowing shafts of moonlight to touch the earth. As the sound of the limo dwindled into the distance, the moon danced across a pair of chrome columns growing out of the middle of the road. A low melodic hum resonated across the landscape as a silhouette took form between the columns; it was man-shaped and very tall. The details resolved themselves: a black suit, tie, long white hair, and jaundiced complexion. The Tall Man stepped from between the columns, flanked on either side by a pair of chrome-plated spheres that hovered just off his shoulders. He looked to see the taillights of the limo disappearing over the horizon. A thin smile crawled across his lips. Eyebrow cocked, he turned and disappeared between the columns, spheres following.

            A split-second following the Tall Man's departure, another figure spilled out of the gateway, as if the columns were coughing up something stuck in their throats. He stood up, gathering a four-barreled shotgun from where it fell on the ground. He looked up the road in the direction his best friend was traveling. He looked back, and the ground, leaving no trace of their existence behind, immediately swallowed up the chrome posts.

            "God damn it," Reggie said, tying his ponytail back with a piece of rawhide. He shouldered the shotgun and started walking.


	2. Chapter 2

            _Where am I?_

            The thought echoed around Michael Pearson's mind.

            _Not that the question hasn't been asked before._ The thought came with a touch of wry sarcasm. _I remember…_

            He thought about what he remembered. He had been in Death Valley, the hearse controlled by the Tall Man having apparently reached its intended destination. He remembered trying to hang himself, suicide being the only option if he wanted peace for his tortured mind. Peace for Jody. Peace for Reggie.

            _I'm still thinking. I'm still alive. 'I think, therefore I…"_

            He had been stopped. The Tall Man. The Tall Man stopped him from killing himself. The rope snapped, and he raised a gateway out of the desert floor and fled, the Tall Man not far behind.

            _Wait just a damn minute. I called a gateway. How did I do that? What is going on? Why does that tall fucker want me so bad?_

            _He needs you. _A different voice. Jody's voice.

            _Jody! Help me! I can't keep doing this. I can't do this by myself._

            _Relax, little brother. You're safe, for the moment. I've sent you to some people who can help you._

_            You sent me?_

_            Yeah. You were on your way to somewhere else, but you needed time. I intercepted you. You're going to be disoriented for a while, but you're safe._

_            Where am I?_

_            Hospital. With friends. They will take care of you, for now._

_            Hospital? Great. If the nurse's head suddenly explodes and one of those chrome bastards comes flying out…_

_            It's not like that this time. Trust me. _The voice in Mike's head faded.

            _Jody?_

            Silence. Mike's thoughts sunk down into darkness and he slept. For the first time in a long time, he slept with no dreams to disturb him.


	3. Chapter 3

            _Can you hear me?_

            Adam was standing by the young man's bed, trying to establish some sort of telepathic link that would at least allow Adam to learn his name. There was nothing so far, nothing like that searing contact when Adam had first touched him.

            _We need to know who you are. Who is chasing you? What can we do to help you?_

            Frustrated, Adam threw himself into the bedside chair. With a pop and a flash of light, Megabyte Damon appeared in the room.

            "I can hear you all the way across London," the redhead began, then stopped when he saw the look on Adam's face. "No luck?"

            "None," Adam replied, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands. "I know he's telepathic. When I touched him, I could see images so clearly it was like being in them. Now it's all just a big blank."

            Megabyte walked around to the other side of the bed and looked down at the man Adam and his father had rescued. To Megabyte, the guy looked almost like a corpse, the rise and fall of his chest all but unnoticeable. The all-black wardrobe just added to the effect, and he gave the redhead a severe case of the creeps.

            "Maybe," Megabyte said, "you should try touching him again. Maybe he can only broadcast if you're in contact with him."

            "I don't want to do that," said Adam, rubbing his forehead with the memory of that mental jolt. "It was unbelievable, like touching a live wire. I'm afraid to try it again."

            Megabyte considered his friend. Adam was clearly spooked, and Megabyte had never seen him like this. There was more going on here than just some poor schmuck hitchhiking in the rain. They had to do something.

            "Let's try it together," suggested Megabyte. "Maybe we can dilute the power between the two of us, like adding an extra fuse to handle the load."

            Adam considered this. "You know, that just might work. When we link together, we amplify our thoughts. Maybe we can both absorb enough of this guy's mental energy that it's not going to fry us in the process."

            "Do you think we should call the others? It might be safer if there were more of us."

            "No. I don't want to put the others at risk."

            "But you'll put _me_ at risk. Thanks a heap."

            "It was your idea."

            Megabyte bit back a sarcastic reply. "Fine. Let's do this."

            The boys stood on opposite sides of the bed, hands hovering just off the prone figure's chest. "Are you ready?" asked Adam.

            "Not really," Megabyte replied. "But let's get it over with."

            Adam nodded, and they placed their hands on the man's chest.

            They were standing outside the gates of a huge Gothic mausoleum. The gate was open and the driveway to the building was dark, flanked by a dozen hearses of all makes and colors. The wind occasionally brushed leaves together, causing a restless rustling in the nighttime air.

            "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Megabyte said, getting his bearings.

            "Where are we?" asked Adam.

            "This is where it will start," said a voice behind them. They turned and were face to face with the person that was lying on the hospital bed. He was awake and fully conscious, his gaze focused on the building beyond the gate.

            "Who are you?" Adam asked.

            "My name is Michael Pearson. We can't stay long. He'll find me."

            "Who?"

            "We call him the Tall Man. I think he's from another planet, or maybe another dimension. He harvests the dead, killing off entire towns. The northwestern United States are falling before him."

            "What do we do? How do we stop him?" asked Megabyte. _Why hasn't anyone else tried to stop him?_

            As if hearing Megabyte's thought, Michael answered. "His power of illusion is strong. People don't realize what is happening until it's too late."

            "Where is he?" asked Adam.

            _I am everywhere, boy._

            The two Tomorrow People looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. Michael simply looked resigned, shoulders dropping in defeat.

            "He'll always find me. It doesn't matter where I go. He'll follow. I have to get you out of here. Jody should never have gotten you involved."

            "We need more information," said Adam, desperate to keep his line of communication to Michael open. "How do we find him?"

            _I find YOU,_ the voice echoed. Megabyte shuddered.

            "Get out of here. Now!" Michael shoved both boys back, knocking them to the ground.

            Megabyte and Adam landed on the cold linoleum floor in Michael's hospital room, their contact broken. General Damon was in the room, looking down at his son in concern.

            "What the hell did you think you were doing?" Damon yelled, picking up his son by the shoulders.

            "Dad? What happened?" Megabyte felt dizzy, and he sat himself down beside Michael's bed. Adam did the same on the other side.

            "Dr. Poole and I came in here to start tests on this guy and found you two frozen in place with your hands on his chest. You weren't breathing, and the doctor couldn't find a pulse. I had to pry your hands off of him."

            "General Damon," said Adam, shaking off the effects of the telepathic contact, "his name is Michael Pearson."

            "He's being stalked by some alien," said Megabyte, pouring himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table. "A tall guy robbing graveyards."

            The information from his son caused Damon to raise an eyebrow. "I appreciate the fact that you boys want to help," he began. "But contact with this person is just too dangerous. Don't try it again, under any circumstances."

            "Sure, dad. I think that once was enough for me."

            "Good. Dr. Poole has some tests he wants to run. Why don't you two go back home and get some sleep."

            "Okay, General. Call us if you need us."

            Damon watched as his son and Adam popped out of existence. He hoped for their sake they would for once follow his instructions. There was more at risk than the life of Michael Pearson. Much more.


	4. Chapter 4

            Adam walked down the street alone. It was early morning in Los Angeles, but Adam could hear none of the usual sounds generated by a waking city. His footsteps echoed off of the abandoned storefronts as he slowly made his way up the middle of Wilshire Boulevard, a major thoroughfare that should have been choked with rush-hour traffic. The sky was empty of air traffic. There were no birds, no animals of any kind.

            _This can't be right,_ he thought.

            Over the sound of his own breathing and footfalls, a soft, rhythmic thud had worked its way over the threshold of Adam's hearing. It was gaining volume and approaching. He focused on a figure in the distance, advancing with deadly deliberate stride.

            It was tall. The man was at least seven feet and dominated the landscape. The black suit was at contrast with the white shirt worn underneath. White hair swept severely back from the forehead, falling almost to the shoulders. The skin was pale and corpse-like, with a slight tinge of yellow. To Adam, he looked sick and diseased, like the angel of death before shedding the last vestiges of living flesh. It was gaining ground on Adam.

            "Adam! Are you crazy? Get out of here!"

            It was Megabyte, running towards Adam from a side street. Ami followed, joining them in the street.

            "Run, Adam!" she shouted, grabbing her friend by the arm.

            "We have to go," urged Megabyte, grabbing the other arm.

            The Tall Man was a block away. To Adam, he was taller than the streetlights, taller than the buildings, growing taller with each step until he blocked out the rising California sun. Ami and Megabyte were pushing and pulling at Adam, trying to get him to retreat. Adam felt as if his feet were rooted to the spot, his mind frozen and his telekinetic powers deserting him.

            _ADAM!_

            He was suddenly awake, shaken from side to side by Ami and Megabyte. He was back in the Ship, his crumpled sleeping bag echoing his confused state of mind.

            "Adam, are you okay?" Ami asked, brushing a stray strand of hair off of the Australian's forehead.

            Adam looked around to make sure he was really back in the Ship. "I think so. What happened?"

            "You were asleep. Dreaming," the young woman answered. "You were upset. I could feel your distress from home. I teleported here to make sure you were okay."

            "I felt it too," Megabyte said. "I got here just before Ami. The Ship was going crazy."

            "What do you mean?"

            "The lights were flashing and the sounds it was making were…" the redhead trailed off.

            "Where what?" Adam asked.

            "Well, it sounded like it was in pain."

            "Megabyte and I have been trying to wake you for five minutes. What's going on?"

            Adam pushed his sleeping bag aside and sat up. "I was having a dream. I was in Los Angeles, but the city was dead. The only thing there was Michael Pearson's Tall Man. He was walking towards me and you two showed up, telling me to leave. I guess that's when I woke up. It was so _real_."

            "This is getting way too Outer Limits for my taste," said Megabyte.

            "What are we supposed to do?" asked Ami.

            "I think it's time to get some answers," Adam replied, pulling on his shirt and shoes. "Let's go find Mike's Tall Man."

            The trio formed a tight circle, palm to palm. They folded space, the dimensional shift crackling energy around their bodies. A split-second later, the Ship was empty, left to wait patiently in the sand.


	5. Chapter 5

            "Bill, I think you should take a look at this."

            General Damon walked over to the bed where Dr. Poole was taking a sample of Michael Pearson's blood. The young man had yet to regain consciousness, and the only reaction Poole could elicit was a dilation of Mike's eyes when exposed to light. Dr. Poole had Mike's sleeve rolled up to the elbow and a syringe inserted into a prominent vein. Damon looked closer at the fluid filling the vial. It was yellow.

            "Is that blood?" he asked, swallowing hard.

            "I'm not sure," said Poole, holding a cotton ball over the needle as he removed it from Mike's arm. "It's viscous, like pus from an infected wound. I don't understand how he can be alive with this traveling around his system." The doctor placed a small bandage over the needle prick in Mike's arm. He pulled the blanket back up to Mike's chest and ushered Damon out of the room and into the lab across the hall.

            _Infection,_ thought Damon. _Could this have anything to do with what's been happening stateside?_ According to intelligence reports, plague-like conditions were spreading from town to town in the northwest United States. The situation had so far gone unnoticed by the news media, but the military had started a clandestine effort at isolating the affected area. Unconfirmed reports of troops disappearing or suffering unusual fatal injuries to their heads were starting to filter up the chain of command.

            "Bob, be careful with that stuff," Damon cautioned as Dr. Poole headed over to the lab's microscope. "It's possible it could be caustic or contagious."

            "Don't worry, Bill," Poole said, prepping a slide with latex-gloved hands. "I'll take every precaution."

            General Bill Damon watched his friend work for a couple of minutes, then left the lab for Dr. Poole's office down the hall. He picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory. A voice answered, asking how she could direct the general's call.

            "I need to speak to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart," Damon replied.

            "Unbelievable."

            Dr. Poole hunched over his microscope, examining the sample of yellow fluid taken from Mike. He had been like that for almost an hour, studying the liquid that flowed where blood should be.

            "What is it?" General Damon had walked back into the room in time to hear the doctor's comment.

            "Take a look at this, Bill. It's unlike any blood I've ever encountered, in humans, animals, or otherwise." He flipped a switch on the base of the instrument and a magnified image of the sample filled the flat-panel display on the workbench. To Damon, the image looked alive; hundreds of spherical cells zipped around each other across the screen.

            "Was this the specimen you took from Pearson?"

            "Yes. And I know what you're thinking." Dr. Poole took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. "The blood, or whatever it is, should be inert after I removed it from his body. As you can see, the cells are still in motion, and it's been at least an hour since I drew it. It's producing heat when it should be reverting to room temperature. Those cells are perfect spheres, an impossibility in and of itself, even if you ignore the fact that they have no nuclei or genetic material."

            "So it's not blood."

            "Not as we know it. Watch this." Dr. Poole pricked his finger with a small surgical blade and allowed a drop of blood to fall onto the slide.

            The reaction was immediate. As Damon watched the screen, sphere cells swarmed around the platelets in Dr. Poole's blood. It was like watching piranha at work on a piece of meat. They tore into each cell, shredding them into protoplasmic confetti. The pinkish tint from the drop of blood vanished from the display, leaving the microscopic orbs to resume their dance across the monitor.

            "Oh my god." Damon felt the blood drain from his face.

            "I see you understand the implications," Poole said. "This substance acts like a virus, destroying the host's blood cells. Why it does that, or why that man across the hallway is still alive is beyond me."

            "Bob," Damon began, wondering just how much he should tell Poole. The doctor was charged with maintaining and studying the physiology of the Tomorrow People, the general's son among them. Bob Poole was already privy to the top-secret information the government had collected on the existence and abilities of known telepaths. If his son and his friends had somehow become involved in the situation in the States, then Poole needed as much information as he could get. "Bob, there's a situation in the northwestern United States. It's much too similar to be a coincidence. People are becoming infected with what the military has classified as a plague, spread by contact with a yellow fluid found in the victim's blood stream."

            "How bad is the contamination?"

            "The army has isolated the entire state of Oregon, and has called in the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce."

            Bob sat back, eyebrows raised in surprise. "UNIT is in on this? You can't be serious."

            "You realize," said Damon, "UNIT being involved is a pretty clear indication that they think this is extraterrestrial."

            "What about Lethbridge-Stewart's scientific advisor? Isn't he some sort of genius when it comes to alien affairs?"

            "UNIT can't seem to get in contact with him. It's now fallen on you to get some answers."

             Bob Poole sat back in his chair and looked at the monitor's display. "Is it really that bad?"

            "It's bad, Bob," said Damon. "You should know this: according to the reports Lethbridge-Stewart relayed to me, the virus is terminal within a few days. The victims' heads explode, scattering biological shrapnel with the force of a bomb. It's how the infection is spreading."

            "So why hasn't it happened to him?" asked the doctor, nodding towards Mike's room across the hall.

            "You're the doctor," Damon replied. "Find out." The general turned and walked out of the room, hoping for all the world that his son was safe.

            Dr. Poole sighed, watching the door close behind Damon. He turned back to his microscope and started scribbling notes on a tablet as he made observations. He completely failed to see the humming metal sphere hovering outside the lab's window.


	6. Chapter 6

            The trio materialized outside of the Gothic mausoleum Megabyte and Adam had seen in their telepathic contact with Mike. It was nighttime, and shadows danced in the gloom at the corners of their eyes. Ami hugged herself, feeling a chill that wasn't entirely related to the temperature of the air.

            "Is this the place?" she asked, hoping somehow that the boys had the wrong location.

            "This is it," confirmed Megabyte. "Creepsville, U.S.A."

            "Mike said that this is where it will all begin," said Adam. "But what? What will begin?" The young Australian walked over to the fence, looking up at the windows of the structure. There were lights on in some, throwing sickly yellow beams out into the night. The moon was absent from the night sky, and the darkness in the shadows was absolute. The row of hearses, seen in his shared vision with Mike Pearson and Megabyte, were missing. Ami and Megabyte drew closer to Adam.

            "Now what?" Ami asked, knowing what the answer was but asking the question nonetheless.

            "Let's take a look around," Adam replied, and they made their way past the gates and into the mausoleum's grounds. They walked slowly, deliberately planting each foot in front of the next, cringing at the snap of dry leaves and twigs. Adam led them to one corner of the massive building, and boosted himself up on a window ledge to peer inside.

            "Can you see anything?" Megabyte asked.

            "No. I can't see a thing," Adam said, dropping back to the ground.

            "Maybe nobody's home," ventured the redhead hopefully.

            "Hey, guys," said Ami, standing just past the corner. "Take a look at this."

            The two boys joined her and looked out over the cemetery. The grounds covered several acres of land, providing burial space for thousands of people. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, the scope of their undertaking became clear. Stretching off into the darkness were hundreds of carefully excavated graves, rectangles of blackness puncturing the manicured lawn. The trio approached the first, peering down into the empty space marked by a moldering headstone. There was no coffin, no remains of any kind. Megabyte looked out over the empty graveyard, and involuntary shudder passing through his shoulders.

            "They're gone," he whispered, taking a step back. "All of them. Every one. Gone."

            "Harvested," said Adam. "That's what Mike said. Harvested, like a commodity."

            Ami looked back over her shoulder at the mausoleum. "What could he want with bodies?" she asked. "Food? Fuel?"

            "Maybe he's collecting the watches and cufflinks," Megabyte replied, forcing a humor he did not feel.

            "Let's take a look inside," suggested Adam, and the three of them turned towards the building behind them.

            "Over here."

            Megabyte waved Adam and Ami over to the door he found near the back of the massive building. It was obviously disused, weeds finding purchase in the cracked cement landing, a perfect entrance to use if they did not want their presence announced. Adam nodded at Megabyte, and the young American placed his hand over the lock and concentrated. In his mind, Megabyte felt his way through the grooves and tumblers of the lock, manipulating them with the skill of a seasoned cat burglar. With a muffled click, the deadbolt slid back and they went inside.

            Ami decided that the inside wasn't much better than the outside. They were in a storage room, crates stacked to the ceiling with cobwebs clinging to the spaces in between. Most of the crates were rectangular, the long sides being about seven feet in length. It was clear that they had been used to ship coffins. Megabyte stood as far away from the crates as the narrow isle would allow, making himself as small as possible.

            "Now what?" Ami asked, clearly not thrilled by her surroundings.

            "Here," said Adam, leading down the row of crates. "There's a door. Let's go."

            The Australian led them through a large door into a corridor. The lights were almost bright, a jarring contrast to the conditions outside. The floor and walls were white marble, Greek columns accenting the architecture every few yards. The walls were covered by small rectangular doors, each set with a tiny brass plaque engraved with a name and two dates.

            "Great," commented Megabyte. "We're in the crypt. Could this get any better?" He walked a few yards up the hallway and cautiously edged his way around the corner.

            Adam was looking closer at one of the names engraved in brass. Ami came up behind him, putting her hand on his shoulder.

            "Adam, I don't like this," she said. "I can feel something here. Something hideous, waiting for us. Like a spider in a web."

            "Then go. Teleport out and wait for us back at the ship."

            "No. That would be worse. You need me here."

            "Okay," said Adam, trying to reassure his friend. "Just a few more minutes, then we're out of here."

            "Hey, guys," said Megabyte, coming back from scouting around the corner. "You really need to take a look at this." The redhead let them up the hall to an intersection and into a side corridor. At the end of the short hall was a metal door fitted with a small window. Adam followed Megabyte to the door, with Ami hanging back to keep an eye on the intersection.

            Adam and Megabyte looked through the window at what appeared to be the embalming lab; a corpse was on an elaborate prep table, suspended in a network of silver wires and stainless steel rods. Nearby was a cart holding a machine containing a viscous yellow liquid. The body's head was restrained by a metal collar and a small electrical saw lay to the right of the unfortunate cadaver. So did the top of its skull.

            "I think I'm going to be sick," Megabyte said.

            "What is he doing?" asked Adam, turning from the window. Looking back at Ami, he became aware of a high shrill hum, just on the edge of his hearing. It sounded a bit like a tiny wail of pain, but with an undertone of soulless, mechanical menace. Ami, still looking down the corridor, let out an involuntary squeak.

            "What is it?" asked Adam. Ami's face was ashy as she pointed down the hall. Adam looked in the direction she had indicated and felt the blood drain from his face. A small silver sphere, looking for all the world like a robotic softball, was flying towards them. It was the sphere emitting the humming noise, and it was getting louder by the second. Megabyte came over to the junction to see what was going on.

            "What the hell is _that?_"

            As he said it, the faintest click was heard as two very lethal-looking blades popped out of the surface of the orb. Its intentions clear, the trio scattered for cover. Megabyte dove left, Ami right, and Adam behind. Unfortunately, the corridor behind them was empty except for row after row of burial niches, and Adam was completely exposed. From his vantage point behind a column, Megabyte reached out with his mind for the sphere and pushed.

            The sphere only wavered slightly on its flight path and flew past Megabyte towards Adam. It was closing fast, and Adam started to run faster. A quick look over his shoulder cost him is balance, and he pitched forward onto the cold marble. Blood tainted his palate as his teeth closed around his tongue. He struggled to regain his footing, but the sphere was almost on top of him. There wasn't even time to teleport to safety.

            Ami closed her eyes and flashed a thought towards Megabyte: _Again. Together. Do it again._ She extended her thoughts and felt Megabyte do the same. Grabbing the sphere with her mind was unlike telekinetic contact with any other object in her experience. It was slippery, like trying to squeeze a wet bar of soap. Determined to save her friend, she gripped it firmly, and with Megabyte's help, shoved. The strain showed on Megabyte's face; sweat ran down his forehead and dripped to the floor.

            This time the results were more dramatic; inches from Adam's face the orb suddenly changed direction by forty-five degrees and impacted the wall with a metallic clang that echoed up and down the corridor. It ricocheted to the far wall, taking a sizeable chunk out of the marble as it did so. The sphere continued up the corridor, caroming back and forth like a demented pinball. The humming noise faded into the distance, accompanied by the occasional chime as the ball bounced from surface to surface. Megabyte and Ami crawled out of cover and joined Adam in the middle of the hall.

            "Are you okay?" Ami asked, helping Adam to his feet. The question was rendered moot as she touched his hand. She'd know instantly if he were injured.

            "Fine, I think," he said, scanning the corridor for any more signs of attack. They were alone, for the moment. "What was that?"

            Megabyte looked up the corridor in the direction the sphere had gone. "I don't know. I've never seen anything like that. How could it even fly? Even with a miniature jet engine, a sphere shape would never be able to generate the lift required to…"

            "Enough analysis," interrupted Ami. "We all saw it. It's real. Megabyte, did you feel it when you tried to shove it out of the way?"

            "Yeah. Odd. It was…slippery, telekinetically speaking. I couldn't grab hold of it with enough force to move it."

            Ami looked up the hall. "Exactly. It felt like it had shielding of some kind. Some aura surrounding it that wouldn't allow us to lock on with telekinesis."

            "I doubt that it was alone," said Adam, scanning the corridors around them with alarm. "It's probably been left here to guard the premises and keep anyone from learning too much. I think we should get out of here and regroup before reinforcements arrive."

            The trio closed their eyes and concentrated, each envisioning the Ship buried in the sand. Instead of being instantly whisked away through the space between space, they found themselves standing exactly in the same spot.

            "What's wrong?" asked Ami, alarm seeping into the outer edges of her voice.

            Adam closed his eyes again, this time with no particular destination in mind. He allowed his mind to feel for that crack between dimensions; that small portal that should open for him and let him send himself to any point he chose. It wasn't there.

            "I don't know. Something is blocking us from teleporting. Maybe we can overcome it together."

            They circled into an intimate huddle, palms pressed together. Thoughts raced from one to the other and focused on the Ship; focused on allowing them to step through hyperspace and emerge in the safety and comfort of the half-biological refuge that called to them in the super-evolved portion of their brains. Again, resistance met their efforts. This was stronger than the sphere's aura; this was a concentrated force trying to dampen their telekinetic abilities and keep them in the mausoleum.

            "_Focus,_" breathed Adam, effort creasing his eyebrows. Ami and Megabyte did the same. Between the three of them, they felt the opening and took it. They disappeared in a flash of light and silence descended over the mortuary. Down the corridor, the Tall Man watched them depart. He turned and melted back into the shadows, a malicious chuckle echoing off the marble in his wake.


	7. Chapter 7

            Adam looked out over the water lapping at the beach. He tried to sleep after Ami and Megabyte had left to check in with their families. Slumber eluded him, and he had left the comforting confines of the Ship to sit on the beach and collect his thoughts.

            The lack of any concrete information on Mike Pearson's Tall Man was maddening; without any substantial find at the mausoleum, the Tall Man's activities might as well be considered demonical magic. With no scientific explanations, they were unable to plan any sort of resistance.

            "There has to be more to this," said Adam to himself. "We just didn't look hard enough."

            Adam stood, mind made up. He was returning to the mausoleum, determined to uncover some vital clue that would explain the Tall Man's presence. Hopefully without Ami and Megabyte, he could maintain a low enough profile to slip past whatever might be guarding the place undetected. He focused on his destination, and blinked out of existence.

            Dr. Poole poured himself another cup of coffee and returned to his worktable. The past hour or so had yielded few clues as to the nature of Mike Pearson's infection. Poole decided to run a broader range of tests, and began prepping vials of the fluid to subject to variations in temperature and pressure.

            The waiting sphere shifted its position slightly, allowing another of the orbs to float up next to it. If there had been anyone observing them, it would have appeared that the chrome balls were watching and waiting.

            Adam materialized inside the mausoleum itself, the crack of teleportation energy echoing quietly off the marble. He made his way down the hallway, looking back over his shoulder every few steps to reassure himself that he was alone. There were no signs of pursuit.

            His path took him back to the embalming lab. He entered and looked around. The room was pretty much as they'd seen before, but the corpse that had been suspended in the metallic tangle of wires and rods was gone, and the room looked as if it had been cleaned and sterilized. The machine that held the yellow liquid was empty.

            In the far wall was a doorway, sealed by a heavy metal door. Adam pressed his hand to it, and could feel a slight vibration. He cocked his ear towards it and could hear a melodic hum; a musical vibration that resonated through the door and into his head, making him slightly dizzy. Not wanting to teleport blindly into danger, Adam looked around for a control or button that would allow him to open the door. A round indentation with two vertical openings was set into the doorframe, and Adam suspected that its size and shape would accommodate one of the flying spheres perfectly.

            "A keyhole," he said out loud, to no one in particular. Lacking a pocketful of killer spheres, Adam probed at the locking mechanism with his mind. It was incredibly complex, and Adam wished that he had asked Megabyte to come with him. The redhead was extremely adept when it came to manipulating anything mechanical. Sorely missing Megabyte's resources, Adam continued probing the locking system. It was almost as if some of the components were out of phase, existing just outside the dimensional plane.

            Adam began to manipulate the lock, and suddenly felt something hit his mind with a jolt. It was like live current was being fed back down the telekinetic connection into his brain. Startled, Adam tried to sever the link but couldn't. Whatever he had locked onto wasn't letting go. The pain started to creep over his consciousness, and Adam's vision blurred. Just as he thought he would pass out, the link was severed and the door slid open.

            The humming noise spilled out into the embalming lab. Adam regained his composure and stepped into the chamber. White light filled the room, and Adam couldn't be sure where the walls ended and the ceiling began. Immediately to Adam's left were rows of barrels, stacked three high. They were each about three feet tall, made out of smooth black metal. Each barrel had a narrow window near the top, and Adam stooped to peer into one. Two yellow eyes looked back.

            Startled, Adam jumped back. He had his answer to where the corpses were going. He quickly estimated that there were at least fifty barrels lined up along the wall, each one containing a corpse. It suddenly occurred to him how small the barrels were, and a wave of nausea washed through Adam's stomach. It wasn't enough that the Tall Man was stealing the bodies. He had to crush them down like old beer cans.

            Adam turned from the barrels, looking around the rest of the chamber. Two chrome columns stood near the opposite wall. They were the source of the humming noise, and Adam walked over to them to get a better look. They were about three feet tall, spotless and perfectly seamless. To Adam, the edges looked slightly blurred, as if they were vibrating rapidly. The air in between the columns looked different; thicker, somehow, like a very thin membrane of clear plastic had been stretched over the space between the columns. Adam reached out to touch it and was startled when his hand disappeared.

            Adam jerked his limb back, and was relieved to see that his hand was still firmly attached to his arm. Cautiously, he moved his hand forward between the columns. It seemed to slip past the membrane, disappearing from sight. Adam concentrated on the sensations in his hand. There was a momentary tickle; a mild electrical vibration as his hand passed through the barrier, then heat. The heat became intense, and Adam drew his hand back. Though steaming slightly, his extremity appeared to be injury free.

            "A doorway," he said to himself. "He packs up the corpses, and sends them…where?" He stared at the space between the columns, tempted to step through and see what was on the other side. Memory of the searing sensation in his hand and common sense prevailed. He knew what the Tall Man was doing with the corpses, if not why. There was technology at work here, not magic, and that was something with which General Damon could deal.

            Adam turned and left the chamber, the door sliding back into place behind him. He focused on teleporting himself out of the mausoleum, and was not very surprised to find that he couldn't. It took all three of them to overcome whatever was damping their abilities earlier, and Adam reasoned that he simply had to leave the building on foot and get clear of the grounds before he could teleport.

            He left the embalming lab and concentrated on retracing his steps back to the storeroom. It didn't seem that far before, but the hallways were all identical and he lacked Ami's innate sense of direction. He turned two more corners and was beginning to panic, the crazy thought that the hallways had somehow changed directions in the back of his mind. Adam was just about to double back to the embalming lab and start over when he saw the large door to the storeroom at the end of the hallway.

            Adam broke into a jog, all thoughts of stealth abandoned to the idea of being outside and away from the mortuary. He was nearly to the door when he heard it; the shrill whine of a sphere bearing down on him. He whirled around in time to see the sphere two feet from catching him.

On instinct, Adam threw up a hand to protect his face. The sphere impacted with his flesh, driving the blades through his palm. Propelled by the sphere's momentum, Adam's hand hit the wall above and behind him, the twin blades burying themselves into the marble. Unbelievable pain shot down Adam's arm. He tried to push against the sphere, to wrench his hand free, but his limb was hopelessly impaled. With a slight click, the sphere produced a drill bit and pressed it to Adam's captive palm. As he watched, the drill screeched to life and bore into his flesh. The pain was unbearable, tearing a scream from Adam's throat. A tight stream of blood shot out the back of the orb and splashed to the floor, spreading a gristly sheet of red over the white polished marble. Adam screwed his eyes shut against the pain.

            "It doesn't have to be this way, boy."

            Adam opened his eyes. The sphere, having fulfilled its purpose, was still. The Tall Man stood before Adam, a slight look of smug superiority tugging at one corner of his mouth.

            "I have no need of you. All I want is what belongs to me. Hand over the boy, and I will leave and never return."

            "I can't do that," Adam said, trying to focus and ignore the pain. "You're harvesting people from the planet. _My_ planet. Someone has to stop you."

            "Many have tried. They have failed. You will fail."

            "You have no idea who you're dealing with this time," Adam replied. He had is breathing under control, the pain in his hand fading to a dull throb.

            "I have seen your kind before. Let me show you who _you_ are dealing with," said the Tall Man. He raised an eyebrow.

            Pain seared through Adam's body like a tidal wave, burning every cell in his body. His back arched as if he had touched live wires. The Tall Man dissolved in the curtain of tears streaming from Adam's eyes.

            _The Ship,_ he thought desperately. _I want to be in the Ship; away from Him, safe and comfortable oh my god this is unholy the pain the Ship the pain the Ship the Ship the Ship theShiptheShiptheShiptheShip…_

            It was there; Adam could feel the mental tug that called to all Tomorrow People and the dimensional opening that would take him away from his pain. Teleportation energy crackled briefly around his body, but it didn't sweep him away to the island and his salvation. He remained where he was, impaled on the mortuary's wall with the Tall Man looking into his eyes.

            "There is no escape, boy."

            Adam tried again to telekinetically push his body through hyperspace to safety, but this time he could feel something holding him back. This was far worse than Ramses blocking his power; this was oily and cold and it wrapped his mind in rotting telekinetic tentacles and that pulled at him and threatened to strangle his thoughts. He felt breath on his cheek, hot and metallic as the Tall Man's voice whispered in his ear.

            "You think that when you die, you go to heaven. You come to us."

            _NO!_

            The single thought punched a hole in the force that froze his telekinesis. Through the gap, one signal shone through like a ray of sunlight through the clouds.

            _THE SHIP!_

            Adam latched onto the signal and poured every last ounce of mental strength he had left into holding on and not letting go.

            _Not this time, boy._

            Energy enveloped his body, and Adam felt himself slide outside of reality, leaving the Tall Man, the sphere, and the mortuary behind. He rematerialized in hell.


	8. Chapter 8

            Adam gasped, the pressure on his body forcing him to his knees. Rocks ground against his shins. Each breath was a battle, and the atmosphere he inhaled burned his lungs. His limbs felt heavy and leaden and they dragged him to the ground. Lying there, Adam reached out with his mind.

            _Ami? Megabyte?_ No answer. The wind howled in his ears. _Kevin? Jade? Lisa?_ The names echoed around his head and died.

            _ANYONE!_

            There was nothing. Adam lifted his head and squinted against the heat and wind to look at the landscape surrounding him. The sky was red, crimson clouds boiling and tearing themselves to shreds. A sea of rock stretched into the distance, bisected by a single path that disappeared to the horizon. Adam lay at the start of the path next to a marker, alien and sinister, that seemed to indicate the beginning of a hopeless journey. A few metallic barrels, crushed and battered by the relentless pressure of gravity, littered the area.

            _This is his place,_ Adam thought. _Whatever he takes from Earth is sent here._ Adam's heart stabbed out a few irregular beats, competing with the local g-forces. To Adam, it felt as if it would stop any second. The hand pierced by the sphere throbbed.

            _I have to get out of here. But where is here?_

            He wasn't even sure he could teleport himself to anyplace remotely hospitable. Somehow the Tall Man had sent him here; he had prevented Adam from teleporting to the Ship and had dumped him onto his enemy's home turf. Adam doubted if he would be allowed to leave. He wasn't even willing to bet that all of the Tomorrow People linked together could overcome whatever power resided in the Tall Man's mind.

            _I can help._

            The voice in his mind was faint, and Adam doubted that he heard it at all.

            _I can help,_ it said again, this time resolving itself fully in the telepathically receptive portion of Adam's brain. _You have to trust me._

            _I'll try,_ Adam sent. _Where are you?_

            _You'll have to come to me,_ the voice said. Adam wrested his head around to gaze at the horizon. A section of green and blue had appeared in the distance, twisting in the air like a mirage.

            _I'm going crazy,_ he thought. _This is what happens to you right before you die._

            _Concentrate, damn it! There's too much at stake!_

            The telepathic shout acted like a splash of cold water on Adam's mind. He looked at the shimmering image and mentally linked it to himself. He willed himself to be there, and with a flash of light he was.

            The pressure and unrelenting heat were gone, his heart once again free to resume normal rhythms. Opening his eyes, Adam looked around and was amazed to find himself on a beach, gentle waves brushing at the edge of the sand. The sky was a comforting blue, a few white clouds hanging in the air. Adam reached out, telepathically searching for the signal from the Ship or his friends. He still felt nothing.

            "You're still in the Tall Man's world," someone said. The words were spoken, reaching Adam through his ears and not his mind. He turned and faced a forty-year-old man dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. "I've managed to gather enough juice to maintain a safe environment for you. Your abilities are keeping it stabilized and filling in the details. Step three feet in any direction, and you'll be back out there."

            Adam looked past the man, and could see the atmosphere of the red planet churning beyond the illusion. He concentrated on remaining still, unwilling to do anything to disturb the bubble of safety.

            "Who are you?" the boy asked.

            "Jody Pearson. Mike's older brother."

            "What are you doing here?"

            Jody smiled a tired smile. "That's a long story. Let's just say Mike and I are a couple of thorns in the Tall Man's side."

            "What does he want? Why is he…" the question trailed off as Jody interrupted.

            "He's amassing an army and stealing slave labor. The details are unimportant right now. I sent Mike to you because he needs your help."

            "How can we help?" asked Adam, fighting the urge to pace. "This Tall Man of yours is far beyond anything we've ever encountered. He's been able to dismiss our abilities without so much as a shrug. Even if we were powerful enough to overcome him, we can't kill him."

            "I don't need you to fight him. I have someone for that. I need you to help Mike break out."

            "He's a Tomorrow Person?"

            Jody smiled. "Something like that. Perhaps more. Help him sharpen his power."

            "I can't even touch him without the contact killing me."

            "You can overcome that. Your strongest weapon is the link you share with your friends and the bioelectric entity."

            "You mean the Ship? You know what it is?"

            "All you need to know is that it is as much a part of your Tomorrow People as you are. It helps you, and you can help it. Get Mike to it. Between you, you can send him back to fight." As he said it, Jody's body seemed to flicker. To Adam, it looked as if he had started to fold into himself somehow.

            "There's no more time for explanations. My power's starting to fail. I can send you back, but you'll have to help me." This time, Jody's body collapsed in on itself and formed into the familiar shape of a compact chrome sphere. Adam's eyes widened and he instinctively protected his wounded hand.

            _It's me,_ came Jody's voice, clear and sharp in Adam's mind. _I won't hurt you._

            _How is this possible?_ thought Adam. _What are those things?_

            _Not important,_ Jody sent. _To raise a gate, I have to stop protecting you from the atmosphere. It won't be pretty. Are you ready?_

            Adam took a few quick breaths and nodded, even as he wondered if the sphere could understand such a movement. Apparently it did, and Adam was once again hit with the full force of the red planet's gravity and was forced to the ground. A line of blue energy shot out of the sphere, outlining a rectangle in the air in front of Adam. A melodic hum rose above the sound of the rushing air.

            _Help me,_ thought Jody. _Feel for the gate in your mind._

            Ignoring the pain in his body, Adam pushed his thoughts outward. He felt it immediately, an almost subconscious vibrating hum that tickled his mind. Adam saw the sound traveling through his synapses. He picked it up and telekinetically manipulated it like a potter working clay, forming two columns of slightly vibrating energy. He opened his eyes to see twin chrome columns rooted firmly to the rock. The air still chimed with the discordant music resonating off of the columns.

            Adam looked back to the sphere containing Jody's mind. "What now?" he asked.

            _Go. Step through the gateway. Get Mike to your Ship. You'll find all the help you'll need._

            Adam lifted his hand in a small wave, then crawled between the columns. It wasn't like the tingle of teleportation. Traveling through the gateway vibrated Adam's mind and tickled his body, numbing his senses. There was no sense of shifting location as he suddenly found himself standing on his own planet, clothes steaming from the change of temperature, face to face with a four-barreled shotgun.

            "Just who the fuck are you?" asked Reggie, cocking back the hammers on his favorite weapon.


	9. Chapter 9

            "Don't shoot!" Adam yelled, holding up his hands in surrender.

            Reggie kept his shotgun leveled. "Stand still, damn it, or I'm going to shoot first and find out if you have yellow blood later."

            "I'm not from the Tall Man, if that's what you're thinking."

            "I've never seen you before in my life, and you suddenly appear out of one of those overgrown tuning forks. What am I supposed to think?"

            "Who are _you?_" asked Adam, feeling as if his grip on reality was slipping again. "How do I know _you_ weren't sent by the Tall Man?"

            "Well, you just have to trust me on that," the older man said. He lowered his shotgun and held out his hand. "Name's Reggie."

            "Adam," the boy said, taking Reggie's hand and shaking it. A slight telepathic vibration tickled the back of Adam's mind, warm and reassuring, confirming the fact that whoever Reggie was, he wasn't an alien threat.

            Reggie looked behind Adam. Not surprisingly, the gate columns had disappeared. At least he wasn't being followed. "How did you get caught up in this mess, Adam?"

            "Last night, we rescued a man named Michael Pearson," he replied.

            "Mike? Is he okay? Where is he?"

            "He's safe," Adam said. "I tried to confront the Tall Man, and I ended up on a different planet."

            "That red planet?" Reggie asked.

            "Yes."

            "Been there. How did you get back?"

            "Mike's older brother was there, or at least part of him was. He helped me call up a gate and sent me here."

            "Jody, huh? Who else is in on this?"

            "My friends and I are a group of telepaths with telekinetic abilities. We call ourselves Tomorrow People. Jody said he sent Mike to us because we could help him escape the Tall Man."

            Reggie looked at Adam. He wasn't much older than Mike was when this whole mess started. He didn't know what Jody thought he was up to, but young help was better than no help. If they had some sort of super powers, then so much the better. He started to ask Adam if he had a car handy, but was stopped by a guttural, inhuman growl.

            Adam and Reggie turned at the sound. Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw something short and brown disappear behind a tree trunk. An animalistic grunt came from their right, and Adam spied another shape vanishing behind a rock.

            "God damn it," Reggie said, checking the rounds in his shotgun. "Those little bastards found us."

            "What are they?"

            "Friends of the Tall Man."

            They heard shuffling behind them, and turned together to face five short hooded figures, advancing on them with arms outstretched. The moonlight played across one of the creatures, highlighting its face. It might have been human once, but wasn't any more.

            "Oh, god," Adam groaned, backing up a step.

            "Stay behind me," Reggie ordered, as he took aim and fired. The quadruple shotgun blast ripped the night apart, throwing all five dwarves backwards in a spray of yellow fluid. Reggie immediately cracked open the barrels and dumped the spent shells on the ground, replacing them with fresh ones. He pulled out a pistol and held it out to Adam. "Here. Take this."

            Adam stared at the gun. "I can't."

            "What do you mean, 'I can't?' These little freaks will rip your throat out without even thinking about it."

            "We have a barrier in our minds. We can't kill. Look out!" Another dwarf had managed to climb a nearby tree and was set to pounce on Reggie's back. Before Reggie could bring the shotgun to bear, Adam mentally grabbed the creature and shoved it backwards. It flew off the branch and landed on its backside fifty yards away. It immediately scrambled to its feet and charged. Reggie felled it with a blast from his weapon.

            "That's a pretty neat trick," said Reggie, impressed. "But they'll keep coming. I can't hold them off on my own. I need you to put 'em down for good, unless you have some sort of brilliant plan for getting us out of here without hurting the little darlings."

            "You know, Reggie? That's not a bad idea." Adam grabbed his new companion by the arm and they flashed out of existence.


	10. Chapter 10

            "Dr. Poole!"

            Adam and Reggie materialized in the lab to find the doctor crouched down behind an overturned table. The ordinarily tidy workspace looked as if a giant hand had taken the entire room and shaken it violently. Dr. Poole himself was almost prone on the floor, brandishing a length of metal pipe like a policeman's truncheon.

            "Adam! Get down!" the doctor yelled. Adam and his companion hit the deck just as two spheres, blades extended, screamed through the space they had occupied only milliseconds before.

            "Oh, shit," said Reggie, shifting his shotgun to a more useful position. "Not these things again." He scrambled to find a suitable place from which to draw a bead on the lethal killers now loose in the lab.

            "Wait, Reggie!" Adam yelled, intent on getting them out of there as quickly as he could focus on a destination. "Dr. Poole! Can you reach me? I'll try to teleport us out of here!"

            A pop and hiss of dynamic telekinetic energy heralded new arrivals in the lab. "What the heck is going on here?" asked Megabyte, as he and Ami took in the condition of the room. "Woah!" he yelled, finally seeing the two spheres as they performed mid-air pirouettes at the opposite end of the lab and charged back to engage their quarry.

            Ami dove to the floor, ending up beside Reggie. The man had his shotgun pointed square in the middle of Megabyte's back, the redhead being between them and the advancing spheres. "Who are you?" she asked, wondering if she shouldn't just disarm the stranger and ask questions later.

            "Long story," he said. "Kid! Get out of the way!"

            Megabyte stood frozen, his feet rooted in place as if hypnotized by the sight of the advancing orbs. Panicked, he reached out with his mind for anything he could use as a weapon. A metal bowl, resting where it had fallen on the floor, flew into the air to intercept the spheres a meter from the young American's forehead. The three objects collided with a deep, resonant chime that seemed to fill the room, and the results were dramatic.

            Both spheres seemed to freeze in mid-air, as if caught in a picture on high-speed film, and exploded with tiny flashbulb-like pyrotechnics. Pieces of chrome-plated shrapnel rained down onto the lab floor. From his position behind the overturned table, Dr. Poole was distracted by the magnified image on the amazingly undamaged microscope monitor.

            Adam, Ami, and Reggie cautiously emerged from their respective hiding places, eyes peeled for any signs of additional attack. Megabyte stood in place, unable to will himself to move. He looked down at the silvery shards now decorating his sneakers.

            "What just happened?"

            "Good question, Red," said Reggie, still scanning the room for assorted boogums. "I've seen those brain drainers do a lot of weird stuff, but that's the first time I've ever seen 'em just…pop."

            "That's not all," said Dr. Poole. He had once again taken up his position by the microscope, probably the only thing in the lab that was undisturbed. "Marmaduke, would you pass me that bowl, please?"

            Megabyte grimaced. "Sure, if you stop calling me 'Marmaduke'," he said, mildly embarrassed at the use of his given name. He picked up the bowl, now sporting twin dents where the spheres had impacted on its surface, and handed it to the doctor.

            "Watch the monitor," Poole said, and struck the bowl with the piece of pipe he had used to defend himself. The same chime rang out from the bowl's surface, and the effect on the yellow fluid could be seen immediately. All motion suddenly stopped, as if the display was nothing more than a pre-recorded movie and Dr. Poole had pressed the "pause" button on the remote control. The sound from the bowl faded, and the spherical cells suddenly resumed their motion. Poole struck the bowl again, freezing the cells in place. They started moving again only after the sound dwindled away into nothing.

            "Sound," Adam said simply.

            "Yeah," said Reggie, looking at the display over Adam's shoulder. "That's it! Damn! Why didn't I see this before? Those dimensional doors of his are just huge tuning forks."

            "What's a tuning fork?" asked Megabyte, picturing an orchestra sitting down to dinner. Ami filled in the missing pieces.

            "A tuning fork is a u-shaped piece of metal, designed to vibrate and sound a specific pitch when struck. They're used to tune musical instruments."

            "Here," said Reggie, taking his tuning fork out of his pocket and handing it to Megabyte. The young man struck it on the edge of the table, producing a sound similar to the one the bowl had made. The tiny yellow spheres on the monitor froze in mid-dance. 

            "That's how he's able to do what he does," said Adam. By using sound waves at specific pitches, the Tall Man is able to open hyperspace doorways."

            "The spheres probably operate on the same principle," said Megabyte, back on firmer ground where technology was concerned. "Sound waves supporting them and providing thrust. The sound from the bowl probably disrupted those frequency fields, and poof! No more spheres."

            "It's not magic," said Adam. "It's not the undead or evil. It's science."

            "I don't believe it," said Reggie, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I've been fighting this bastard for years, and here you guys come up with the most important piece of useful information about the Tall Man ever, in a matter of minutes."

            "Dr. Poole," Ami interrupted. "How is Michael?"

            "Mike? Here?" Reggie began to look furiously around for any sign of his missing friend. "Where is he?"

            "He's fine, Mr….uhm. I don't believe we've been introduced," said the doctor, extending his hand.

            "Reggie. Reggie Bannister." Reggie took Dr. Poole's hand and shook it.

            "Mr. Bannister, your friend is currently in a stable but comatose state. His blood has been replaced by that yellow fluid, which is spreading a plague-like disease in the United States that causes its victims' heads to explode. I haven't been able to figure out why your friend seems to be unaffected by it or even why he's in a coma. Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

            "We'd better sit down," Reggie sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "It's a long story."


	11. Chapter 11

            The mountain thrust skyward, an obvious incongruity interrupting the bleak landscape. From a distance, the landmark was a black scar against the boiling crimson atmosphere; an inky gash that appeared to contain no matter. Had anyone able to withstand the crushing atmosphere and searing heat been standing there, observing the mountain, they would see what would have appeared, at that distance, to be a writhing, undulating skin encasing its surface.

            Closer inspection would have revealed the mountain to be covered in scores of the Tall Man's dwarfish reanimations, each frantically attempting to scale the spire. The creatures would claw for any available handhold to thrust themselves skyward. Dwarves grabbed at each other, crawling up and over the backs of their brethren, kicking at those underneath and knocking them off rock face. A dwarf would land on its back at the base and immediately scramble back into the fray, scratching at the rock for purchase.

            The Tall Man sat at the summit, his throne hewn from the peak itself. Spheres swarmed around him, electrons orbiting their nucleus. Occasionally dwarves would reach the peak with arms outstretched, struggling to touch their creator. Any of the creatures on the verge of contact with the Tall Man were intercepted by one or more of the spheres, impaled on the twin blades and pitched backwards down the side of the sheer cliff face. The falling body would dislodge others, creating a ripple effect down the mountain. This was only a temporary setback, as the dwarves would immediately resume their ascent.

            Unblinking, he gazed out over his world. He was aware that the telepath was no longer there, aided in his escape by the Rouge. It was likely that the Rogue had sent the telepath to the Ice Cream Man in hopes that they would be able to prevent him from reaching the Boy.

            _The Boy._

            The Tall Man's brow creased slightly at the thought. True, coming across the Boy ten years ago was pure chance. He could have simply ignored the Boy, allowing the experiment to continue, but the Boy had been able to see past the mental barriers that were usually effective at hiding the Tall Man's activities. Something had evolved; something outside the Tall Man's control. Somehow the Boy had become an autonomous entity, completely capable of exercising free will.

            _No matter, the Tall Man thought. __The necessary resources have been harvested and the Boy will soon be where he belongs. But…_

            The Tall Man's eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

            _He summoned a gateway._

            The Boy's ability to manipulate the tones and resonances required to operate the gateways was something to be considered. He still did not possess the skill necessary to travel with any accuracy; the Tall Man could have diverted the Boy to any destination. However, the Rogue had interfered and the Tall Man lost the Boy somewhere in the dimensional ether.

            _A temporary condition, he assured himself. _Even if the telepaths involve themselves, this is a minor setback. Nothing more.__

            The Tall Man sat back and stared out over the bleak, hellish landscape. The dwarves continued their futile efforts to mount the summit as the spheres pushed them away. One corner of the Tall Man's mouth crept up the barest millimeter. Endgame was near.


	12. Chapter 12

            _Mike._

            The voice was faint, but familiar. It stirred something in Mike; emotions that were always churning just beneath the surface of his consciousness. He opened his eyes.

            _Bed,_ he thought. _I'm in bed._

            He sat up and looked around. White blinds covered the windows. A small bedside table held a plastic pitcher of water. A chair, draped with his jacket, sat in the corner. Rails prevented him from inadvertently rolling out of bed.

            _Hospital,_ he deduced. _Jody said I was in a hospital._

            Mike swung his feet to the floor and stood. He made his way to the door and placed his hand on the doorknob. Ten years of opening doors and finding all description of horrors lurking behind them made him hesitate just shy of turning it.

            _C'mon, Mike._

            The voice again. Jody's voice.

            _We need to talk._

            Mike turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped through.

            It wasn't the expected hospital corridor that awaited him. Instead, Mike found himself standing in his own past. The room was just as he remembered; fire in the fireplace, shag carpeting on the floor. The staircase to the side had the broken spindles, missing ever since that first struggle with the Tall Man. Mike turned back to the fire.

            Jody was sitting on the hearth, like he had on so many evenings, guitar on his lap and beer at his side. His face did not betray any of the years that had passed since Mike's world turned upside down. He patted the space next to him, inviting Mike to sit. Mike joined him and was surprised to feel the heat from the fire; the hearth warm and inviting. Overcome by the feeling of safety and security washing over him, he reached out to hug his older brother, but stopped as he caught sight of his reflection in the living room's mirror. He was thirteen again.

            "It isn't real, is it?" he asked the older man. The bitterness penetrated his now adolescent voice.

            "I'm afraid not, little brother. I brought you someplace safe. Someplace where he can't interfere. We have plans to make."

            Mike sighed and closed his eyes. "What plans? What good will it do? Everything we've done has made no difference. We've even killed him, and he keeps coming back. How can I fight that?"

            Jody set his guitar aside and took a pull on his beer. "It's different this time, Mike. He's scared of you now. He knows the potential that resides in you and is terrified that you'll find out how to use it."

            "God damn it, Jody!" Mike jumped up from the hearth. His reflection had changed; he was back in his present age. "Fuck all the mystical bullshit. I saw what he was trying to cut out of me back at that mortuary. I've got one of those…those…_things_ inside my head!"

            "Mike," Jody said as he stood. He once again looked his age; he crossed the room and placed a hand on his younger brother's shoulder. Mike turned, throwing Jody's hand off of himself.

            "Don't you get it, Jody? I have one of those spheres where my brain should be. I saw it try to push its way out of my skull and I forced it back in. That's why he wants me so bad, isn't it? Because I'm just like him. Oh, what the fuck. Let's go the distance. With all the time travel and jumping through dimensions, I probably _am_ him!"

            The scene around Mike jumped, like a picture on a badly tuned television. For an instant, the house around him looked old and decayed then returned to its original form. Jody gasped, pain creasing his face.

            "That's it," Mike said, rage causing his voice to drop to a bare whisper past clenched teeth. "I'm through with this. No more illusions. I'm going to finish this, Jody, one way or the other."

Mike turned. The house was old; the carpet threadbare and moldy. The fixtures were rusting and piles of broken sheetrock littered the floor. The stench of decay permeated the air. Mike grabbed the doorknob and tore open the rotting door. As he did, the house and Jody disintegrated, pieces of the illusion flying around Mike like shrapnel.

As the shattered vision of his past ricocheted through the space around him, it dissolved back into the starkly contrasting hospital room. Reassured of the validity of his surroundings by the simple fact that he had never been here before, Mike grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and turned to the door. Without hesitation, he opened it and went through.


	13. Chapter 13

"Ten years. We've been chasing or been chased by this guy for ten years."

Reggie sat back, swirling the dregs of his tea. He stared down into the murky remains as if they would provide the solution to the cosmic conflict in which he was embroiled. Ami, Adam, Megabyte, and Dr. Poole sat around the remains of the lab, enraptured by Reggie's narrative of his decade-long quest. Apart from the occasional inquiry from Dr. Poole and the more frequent interruptions of "no way" from Megabyte, the group was reverently silent as Reggie detailed a world turned inside out, punctuated by intensely personal tragedy.

"It's bullshit, you know," he continued. "We've killed him. I've seen him die. Eyes have exploded, skin has melted, corpses have been cremated, and none of it has made a damn bit of difference. You turn the next corner or open the next door in the crypt, and he's there. What's the point? Why do we keep fighting?"

"You don't play maudlin very well," said Ami, blowing the steam off the top of her mug before taking a sip. "You've followed your friend halfway around the world. Crossed dimensions for him. Fought demons that would have driven most men over the edge of sanity. I don't believe for one instant that you'd just be willing to give up now."

"You're pretty damn intuitive for someone under legal drinking age," said Reggie, shooting Ami a half-amused, half-resigned look. "You're right. Since Mike's parents died, Jody and I looked after him. Now that Jody's died, or transformed, or whatever the hell you call it when you get turned into a killer stainless steel snow globe, I'm pretty much the only family Mike's got. If I don't look out for him, who will?"

"What makes you think I need looking out for?"

All five heads turned in unison at the voice from the doorway. Michael Pearson stood silhouetted against the light from the hallway. He stood erect, shoulders back and head defiant, as if being comatose for two days was a mere inconvenience. Adam noticed the dark circles under Mike's eyes; the brow creased against the effort being exerted to keep his body upright. The young Australian stretched out his mind, feeling for Mike's telepathic presence. He met resistance, and Mike's eyes narrowed towards him as if to say, _not now._ But Adam could feel the weariness through the mental barrier; weariness that threatened to overwhelm Mike's consciousness and force him back down into the dark chasm from which he had just emerged.

_It'll be okay,_ Adam sent. _We're going to give you all the help we can._

Mike's face relaxed; he gave the barest nod and hint of smile in Adam's direction. Reggie was more direct; he knocked over his stool and teacup to sweep Mike up in an awkward but enthusiastic bear hug. After several minutes in which Ami was certain Mike couldn't possibly exchange enough oxygen to sustain life, Reggie released Mike and held him at arm's length and looked him over head to toe.

"Jesus, Mike! I wasn't sure I would ever see you again! How the hell did you end up here? How the hell did I end up here? How the hell did we end up here?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I pulled over at a rest stop. I stepped into the restroom to take a leak and found myself in either the English countryside or the biggest far-out fucked up rest stop restroom ever. You?"

Mike hesitated, unsure of how to explain the past few days. Reggie had always been more skeptical of the metaphysical aspects of the Tall Man's existence, preferring to rely on brute force over intellect when dealing with their adversary. Mike felt Reggie's response to the information that he was somehow connected to the Tall Man on a fundamental level and had a limited ability to control their enemy's technology would probably be unfavorable, if not downright unpleasant. For the moment, Mike decided to keep his newfound abilities to himself.

"I'm not quite sure. I was stranded somewhere in Death Valley. Next thing I know, I woke up here."

"I think you were both sent here," Adam interjected. "I ran into your Tall Man and got teleported to…what did you call it, Reg?"

"The Red Dimension," he answered, never taking his eyes off of Mike.

"To the Red Dimension," Adam continued. "I talked to an apparition generated by one of those spheres, claiming to be your older brother Jody."

"You talked to Jody?" Mike asked. Ami saw something in his expression; a dark veil of emotion eclipsing his eyes like storm clouds. She sensed a palpable telepathic transmission of emotion, sending a distinct feeling of suspicion and anger into her mind. As soon as she felt it, it was gone. It was raw, like a telepath who was on the verge of breaking out and did not yet have fine control over his abilities.

Adam must have sensed what Ami felt, because he chose his words deliberately and slowly. "I had a conversation in a telepathically generated environment with an image of someone who said he was Jody Pearson. He said that he sent you to us because you possess telepathic abilities that would help you fight the Tall Man and that we could teach you to develop them."

Reggie's gaze narrowed on Mike as Adam said that, but he remained silent as Adam continued. "At that point, the image collapsed into a sphere. It helped me form a gateway and sent me to Reggie."

"Then we were molested by demonic midgets, teleported here, attacked by giant lethal flying ball bearings, and you come in and make some inane understated smart-ass comment like you haven't been missing and in a coma for a week," finished Reggie. "So I'd say everything is pretty much normal."

"Mr. Pearson, I'm Bob Poole." The doctor stood, extending his hand. Mike took it, shaking it once. "I've been looking out for your medical needs since you arrived. Do you mind if I give you a once-over?"

Ami didn't need to be a telepath to sense that Dr. Poole wanted to talk to Mike alone. "C'mon, Reggie. I'm sure you'd like something to eat. I happen to be able to telekinetically pick the lock on the door to the commissary."

"You going to be okay, Mike?" Reggie asked, clearly not happy about the idea of having Mike out of his sight.

"Yeah," Mike replied. "I think we're safe here. If I know you, you haven't eaten anything except candy bars and potato chips for the past week."

"Okay, but if you need anything, give a yell and I'll come running."

"You got it," Mike said, following Dr. Poole. Adam stood to follow, but Ami intercepted him.

"Come on, Adam. You need food, too."

"I do, too," Megabyte said, standing.

"When do you not need food?" asked Adam, following them with one last glance after Dr. Poole and Mike. The storm was on the horizon, set to strike after the temporary calm. Food was only the first stop on their journey that night, and Adam sensed that the road ahead was not going to be easy. Michael Pearson was not all that he seemed, and Adam was determined to discover why.

"I'm going to put all this out on the table, Mr. Pearson. You have been infected by a substance that has completely replaced your blood supply. According to all of our intelligence, this infection is fatal within a few hours. Is there anything you can tell me that can shed some light on why I am sitting here talking to you instead of dodging fragments from your exploding skull?"

Michael's face hardened, a resigned sigh slipping past his lips. "I suppose you gave me a complete check-up when I was out for the count."

"Standard procedure."

"Notice anything else out of the ordinary?"

"No, just the fact that you are infected."

"Well, Doctor, you probably know about as much as I do."

"I need to run some more tests. I'd like to perform an MRI and see if there's anything physical that could account for your immunity."

Michael raised an eyebrow at Poole's suggestion of a complete imaging of his body. He wasn't sure that the doctor would react favorably when he learned what was housed in Michael's skull. A sudden image of questions, suspicions, and quarantines made his decision for him. Michael looked Dr. Poole in the eyes, concentrated, and spoke deliberately and slowly.

"You gave me a complete physical and found nothing unusual. You have concluded that I am suffering from exhaustion. You see no reason why Adam and his friends can't attempt to help me."

Dr. Poole blinked slowly a few times. His eyes had lost focus. After a minute or two, he cleared his throat. "Well," he started, his voice thick as if he had woken from a deep sleep. "I can't find anything wrong with you physically. All of your symptoms point to simple exhaustion. Adam and his friends could try and help you."

A grim smile pulled at the corners of Michael's mouth. "Thank you, Dr. Poole. You've been more help than you can possibly imagine."

Michael walked into the commissary, coat on and steel in his eyes. Adam, Ami, Megabyte, and Reggie were cleaning up from their meal.

"I'm ready to go. Dr. Poole has given me a clean bill of health."

"Go?" asked Reggie. "Where are we going?"

"You tell me," Michael said, looking at Adam.

Adam locked eyes with Michael. There was something behind the eyes; something that made Adam feel as if there was far more beneath the surface of Michael's mind than mere TP powers waiting to break free. Adam needed to get him on their turf. "We have a safe haven. We'll take you there and help you practice your telepathic skills."

"Mike, are you sure about this?" asked Reggie. "We have a head start. We can make a run for it."

"Reg, I can't run any more. We have to end this one way or the other."

"Okay. I'm not going to pretend I understand what's going on with all this circus sideshow spoon bending stuff, but it's not any weirder than anything else that happens to us. If you want to give it a try, let's do it."

"Come on," said Adam, standing. "We need you and Michael in the middle." He, Ami and Megabyte encircled them, palm to palm.

"This is the cool part," said Reggie, and space parted with a whip-like crack, whisking the group away with the pyrotechnics of hyperspatial zonal shift.

"Bob?"

General Damon entered the lab, stepping over the debris left by the earlier attack. The doctor was where Damon had last seen him, peering into his microscope. The monitor on the lab table was dark.

"Dr. Poole," said Damon, this time with a hint of military authority. Bob Poole looked up from the microscope. Damon could see there was no slide in the instrument's holder.

"What's going on here, Bob? What happened to your lab? Where's Pearson?"

"I checked Pearson. I found nothing out of the ordinary. He's probably suffering from exhaustion. I suggested that Adam and his friends take him. Perhaps they can help him."

"Nothing out of the ordinary? Bob, the man had that yellow poison in his body where he should have had blood. Now you're telling me nothing's wrong and you allowed him to leave with my son in tow?"

Dr. Poole's eyelids fluttered rapidly for a couple of seconds before his vision seemed to focus on the general. "I'm sorry, Bill," he said, and collapsed to the floor.

General Damon reached down and checked Poole's pulse. It was weak, but steady. He stood and looked for the nearest phone. As he dialed for assistance, he desperately hoped that his son and the rest of the Tomorrow People were safe.


	14. Chapter 14

"Okay. Let's try that again."

Michael sat cross-legged on the beach, the exposed spire of the Ship shading him from the tropical sun. Adam had placed a soccer ball, a baseball, a softball, and a racquet ball in the sand about three feet away. The ragged remains of a tennis ball littered the area like fuzzy shrapnel. Adam stood behind Michael, coaching him.

"This time, concentrate on feeling the object first. Touch it. Let your mind run over its surface. Treat it delicately, like petting a puppy."

Megabyte cringed, picturing a puppy in place of the tennis ball from Michael's first attempt at telekinetically moving an object. He glanced over at Reggie, who made an exploding motion with his hands and whispered, "Boom." This caused both of them to break into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

At their chuckles, Ami glared at the pair and shushed them. Adam rolled his eyes in their direction, but Michael was grinning.

"It's okay, Ami. I think we all need to relax. If I'm too tense, we'll probably end up running out of sporting goods. And you," he said, looking sternly at Reggie with the faintest trace of a grin on his face, "need to stop being such an enabler. Don't you have a shotgun to clean or something?"

"Just trying to lighten the mood, kiddo," Reggie said, standing. "C'mon, Marmabyte, let's let Captain Killjoy and the Bringdowns practice their Vegas magic act. You can show me this spaceship of yours."

"It's Megabyte," said the redhead, leading Reggie back towards the alien landmark buried in the sand.

"Megaduke?" Reggie teased, prompting Megabyte to box him on the arm. The pair disappeared behind the dunes, leaving Adam, Ami, and Michael to concentrate on the objects in the sand.

"Try the baseball," suggested Adam. "Picture it in your mind. Feel the leather, the stitching…feel its weight. Its presence."

Michael stared at the ball. He didn't strain this time, like he had before. Before, he had concentrated all of his thoughts on the tennis ball in one sharp spike of force. Like a dam breaking and releasing all of its water in one massive wave, Michael's thoughts had impacted the tennis ball and blew it to pieces. This time, he forced himself to be calm, taking slow, measured breaths as he did so. He closed his eyes and conjured up a mental image of the baseball.

It was there, suspended in the void of his thoughts. Michael visualized every stitch on its surface; every scar on the leather. He tried to rotate the image in his head to study the orb from every angle, but the image refused to move. Michael's brow creased as he began to force himself to concentrate, and still the baseball remained stubbornly static.

_I can't do this,_ he thought. _I can't make this work. What the hell was Jody thinking, sending me to these kids? They can't teach me a damn thing!_

_Come to me, Boy._ The familiar voice intruding on Michael's thoughts sent a cold spike of terror down his spine. As he focused on the baseball image, he was alarmed to see a skin of silver slipping over its leather surface like mercury.

_I can teach you things these primitive children cannot even begin to imagine._

The image of the baseball was now completely enclosed in the silver sheen. The familiar musical hum was echoing in Michael's mind. The Tall Man congealed himself from the shadows, grabbing the sphere from where it hung.

_This war has started, Boy. Are you sure you are on the correct side?_

Michael gasped. He knew he was on the beach with Adam and Ami, sitting on the sand in the shadow of the Ship. He tried to force his eyes to open, but he was trapped in another nightmare from which he couldn't escape. He felt as if he were being pulled towards the Tall Man; caught in gravity that was dragging him through his own mind. Even though he struggled to release himself and regain control of his subconscious, Michael found himself being drawn inexorably towards the unearthly undertaker.

_Michael!_

It was Ami. Her voice punched laser-like through the darkness, giving Michael a beacon on which to focus. The Tall Man's face contorted with demon-like rage as he crushed the sphere in his hand, causing it to explode with nuclear brilliance. Michael felt himself spiraling down into a void, his thoughts sucked up into the maelstrom of the sphere's detonation. There was nothing to cling to; no safe harbor or shelter in which to ride out the storm. As the blackness threatened to claim him, he again heard Ami's voice.

_Listen to me, Michael. Concentrate._

Michael did as he was told. He focused all of his being on her voice. His descent into oblivion halted.

_Relax. Imagine that your mind is a fist. A great fist, clenched tight. Now…let it open. Slowly. Open slowly. Like a flower. Opening. Break out of your mental restraints. See with your mind, Michael. Feel with it. Look inside yourself. See the forces that exist inside. See it!_

Ami's voice was there; cool, crisp air for Michael's overworked mind. But was it just Ami's voice? Michael felt her voice, layered with others. Many voices in chorus, guiding him. He breathed a deep mental breath and found that he _could_ see it. The sphere inside him was opening up and he could see the minute inner workings of it. He marveled at the combination of sinister, complex technology and pure, unfettered simplicity. He gasped as he realized the possibilities inherent in being almost completely unencumbered by physical limitations. Space and time travel were not theory any more, but a simple progression of steps made outside dimensions by manipulating the sound waves generated by the beautifully resonating shell.

Like a film rolling backwards, Michael could see the sphere's history. A race of beings, torn apart by war, placing the remains of their radiation-riddled physical forms in lumbering armored shells. Moving out into space, xenophobically destroying anything different from themselves; adapting increasingly sophisticated technology to perfect their tank-like enclosures until at last they developed the ultimate lethal form and swarmed through time and dimensions alike, hell-bent on exterminating all other life.

In that shining moment of clarity, Michael understood the depth of the Tall Man's perversion. Technology that could provide an almost utopian existence had been appropriated and bent to achieve…what? Conquest? Power? Dominion over the dimensions? Was he even the one in control? Michael couldn't even begin to guess the answer to those questions. Perhaps the Tall Man's motives were something beyond such simple three-dimensional concepts. Michael suspected that he didn't have the luxury of time to discover the Tall Man's ultimate goal.

Opening his eyes, he found Ami and Adam in the sand on either side of him, looking like a pair of concerned parents fussing over a scraped knee. The image was so absurd given the circumstances, he had to laugh. The pair of telepaths grinned in response.

"How do you feel?" asked Ami.

Michael mulled over the question, asking himself the same thing. "Fine, I think," he said, and as he said it, he realized it was true. He glanced over at the sporting equipment, still lined up in the sand. As he looked at it, the baseball rose several feet into the air and hung rock-steady over the beach.

"I think," he said, with a grim smile on his face, "I may just have the hang of this." Ami and Adam watched as the other three balls joined the baseball above the sand. Michael raised his brow slightly, and all four objects began to chase each other in a tight circle, as if manipulated by an extremely adept but invisible juggler.

Adam whistled softly. "Wow," he said. "It took most of us several weeks of hard training just to skillfully manipulate one object at a time."

Michael shrugged, allowing the balls to drop to the sand. He had refrained from telling any of the Tomorrow People what he knew to be encased inside his head, and he sure didn't want Reggie finding out. That was something he could deal with at the appropriate time, but now was not it. It was better to allow them to think the telekinesis was an inherent ability.

"That's pretty impressive, buddy."

Reggie and Megabyte had teleported to the beach, the redhead deciding it would be more prudent than erupting abruptly from the earth, as usually happened when using the Ship's physical exit.

"Do you think all that mental hocus-pocus will really help fight him?

"I don't know Reggie," Michael replied. "But we've been trying to fight this war on our terms. It might be time to fight this war on _his_ terms."

"You'll have to be ready to take the war to him."

The group turned to face the new voice. Standing near the water's edge was Jody Pearson. No dimensional gateway, no hyperspatial pyrotechnics; he simply wasn't there one moment and there the next.

"Jody."

Michael's voice was totally devoid of emotion, making the utterance of his brother's name a statement, not a greeting. Adam noticed the lack of any fraternal sentiment on Michael's part.

"Little brother," Jody replied, his voice as monotone as Michael's.

"So let's do it," Michael said. "Let's go. Let's find him and take him out."

Jody looked at his feet for several heartbeats before answering. "It's not that simple. You have to know where to look. He may not even be in the same time or the same dimensional plane. He has all of time and space in which to hide. When you're running blind, that's a lot of territory."

"You've been there," said Michael, his voice low and even. "You know where he is. You know how all of this works. You're a part of it."

Jody's expression didn't change, but he managed to look resigned. "Okay. If you feel like you're ready, I'll take you to him."

"Don't worry, Mike," Reggie added. "I've got your back."

"I'll go too," offered Adam. "You'll need help."

"If Adam goes, we're going too," Ami added. Megabyte nodded.

"I don't think you understand," Jody replied. "This is not about you. This is Michael's journey. Michael's responsibility. This is for him alone."

"Wait a minute," Reggie protested. "Mike can't do this by himself. He'll need help. He'll need us."

"I really don't think that Michael will be ready to face down the Tall Man on his own after only one practice session moving balls around on the beach," Adam added. "He'll need some kind of telekinetic backup. Isn't that why you sent him to us in the first place?"

Ami didn't need telepathy to sense Adam's distrust of Jody. It was palpable; it hung in the air like sea spray and peppered Adam's words. She turned her thoughts outward, reaching towards Jody in an effort to understand his motives. Used to getting a reading from just about everyone she encountered, Ami was startled to feel nothing. Her probing thoughts didn't meet resistance…they slipped around Jody's presence like water around river rock. It was like Jody was covered in psychic Teflon, preventing Ami's mental inquiries from finding purchase. The sensation was eerily familiar, and her eyes widened at the realization that trying to make telepathic contact with Jody felt exactly like trying to telekinetically grab the sphere that had, so recently, threatened Adam's life during their midnight visit to the mausoleum.

Focusing outward, Ami was startled to realize that Jody was staring at her. His face was expressionless, but his eyes bored into hers as if to tell her that she should really be minding her own business. Undeterred, she met his gaze and stared back, standing her mental ground. For an instant, it appeared as if Jody was melting; his features became plastic and shifted. Ami found herself staring into a cruel, yellowing face surrounded by stringy white hair pushed back from the temples. The Tall Man's eyes narrowed at Ami's scrutiny, his thin mouth pulled down at the corners. In the next instant, the undertaker's face was gone.

Having lost her composure, Ami was unable to even send a rudimentary warning to Adam and Megabyte before the tell-tale hum from a hyperspatial gateway crossed into their range of conscious hearing. A twin flash of silver from the tide line announced the impending arrival of the enemy.


End file.
